Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Bathroom greenness

Wipe your behinds with leaves, do not use the whole tree!Worldwide, the equivalent of almost 270,000 trees is either flushed or dumped in landfills every day and roughly 10 percent of that total is attributable to toilet paper.Do not pee in the toilet!A Brazilian environmental group is trying to get the country’s residents to urinate in the shower. The group says that if a single household flushed the toilet just one fewer times a day, it would save a whopping 1,157 gallons of water each year.Prefer showers over baths! Showers use less water. Don't forget to install an efficient showerhead.Use soaps and detergents that contain no phosphates!Use a mixture of water and vinegar to wash your windows. Wash clothes in cold water to avoid consuming energy to heat the water. On sunny days, use a clothes line instead of a clothes dryer. Your clothes will smell fresher and the sun's rays ensure that germs are successfully sizzled.Install low-flush toilets in your home!These use 1.6 gallons per flush, instead of 3.5 gallons, cutting water consumption by more than half.For the ladies out there, consider using cloth (as in, reusable) tampons and pads, or using a menstrual cup!It may seem gross, but it can't be grosser than the thought of the amount of pads and tampons women use yearly piled up in a landfill, now can't it?Use rainwater to wash your face, teeth and hands!Wash clothes with warm or cold water instead of hot!Wash and dry only full loads of laundry!Martin & Meelis Linde